Do mono cameras with filter wheels complicate things too much?

[Roog]

Following on from my, how to get started in imaging type thread, I have noticed that people sometimes start off using a colour camera but quite often migrate to mono with a motorised filter wheel.

My question is, does the imaging software deal with moving the filter wheel for you in synch with image capture? Or is it much more complicated than this?  

[scotty38]

I use NINA and yes you set up which filter to use and it is moved automatically. Of course you can have multiple images to be taken so a certain amount with filter a, then some with filter b etc etc.

Edited January 9, 2022 by scotty38

[ollypenrice]

Most capture software, if not all, will move the wheel for you. It can also refocus if you have a motorized focuser. But a word on this: it's often asserted that you need to refocus between filters with a mono system and not with an OSC. This would be true if the filters themselves caused any change in focus but usually they don't. The focus usually changes because the optics are not perfectly colour corrected, meaning red, green and blue have slightly different focal lengths. When this is the case it would be more accurate to say that, with a mono system, you can correct the focus between colours whereas with an OSC you can't. In truth it usually makes little difference. I focus in luminance and then run an LRGB, LRGB sequence without any problems. This is the same focus compromise as you make with an OSC camera, in reality.

I work with both mono and OSC. Modern CMOS OSC is better than old CCD OSC for some reason but, when the moon comes out, the OSC is frustrated.

Olly

[Roog]

Thank you for clearing this up for me. It seems that for what you are saying, whilst mono plus filter wheel may return the optimal results for your set up, in practice the difference may not be significant for a modest armature setup?